Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-7qhmt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T02:34:12.227Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Ille Ego Qui Quondam…

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

R. G. Austin
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool

Extract

Of these lines Markland wrote in 1728 (on Statius, S. 5. 3. 8) ‘patet ignari cuiusdam et barbari interpolatoris esse’; Dr. Trapp in 1735 found them ‘in themselves flat, and improper, and altogether unworthy of Virgil’; ‘in his ipsis miror qui factum sit ut Viri Doctissimi non agnouerint orationis uim et elegantiam’ (Wagner, 1832); ‘finding in them … all Virgil's usual ease and suavity … [we] hail those verses with joy, and reinstate them in their rightful … position as the commencing verses of the great Roman epic’ (Henry, 1873); ‘uersus praeclarissimos iniuria poeta abiudicauerunt editores plerique’ (Hirtzel, OGT, 1901);

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1968

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 107 note 1 Authenticity is now supported by Duckworth, G. E., Structural Patterns and Proportions in Vergil's Aeneid (Ann Arbor, 1962), p. 84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 107 note 2 Not on the Fasti of Ovid, as is sometimes stated (e.g. Rostagni, , Riv. di Fil. lxvii [1939]. I).Google Scholar

page 108 note 1 The words occur among the Pompeian graffiti: see Hoogma, R. P., Der Einfluβ Ver-gils auf die Carmina Latina Epigraphica (Amsterdam, 1959), pp. 222 f.Google Scholar

page 108 note 2 For a wild idea that Propertius' nunc here echoes at nunc in these lines (with other ‘echoes’ also) see Fitz-Hugh, T., TAPA xxxiv (1903), xxxiiGoogle Scholar; Rostagni, agreed (Riv. di Fil. lxvii [1939], 6ff.).Google Scholar The theory is de servedly attacked by Brandt, E., Philologus lxxxiii (1928), 330Google Scholar, and by Funaioli, G., Atene e Roma, N.S. viii (1940), 97 ff.Google Scholar (= Studi di Utteratura antica (Bologna, 1958), ii. 1. 149ff.).Google Scholar

page 108 note 3 So DeWitt, N. W., CP xvi (1921), 344Google Scholar; the argument there made, that Virgil meant the lines to ‘guarantee for all time the unity of authorship’, is absurd. Virgil needed no such ‘guarantee’; if nothing else showed this, it is shown by Propertius' reference to the imminent Aeneid (2. 34. 6566).Google Scholar

page 108 note 4 See Fraenkel, , Kleine Beitrdge, ii. 214 f.Google Scholar, and Horace, , p. 362Google Scholar; Leo, , Kleine Schriflen, ii. 170Google Scholar; Funaioli, , Studi di Utteratura antica, ii. 1. 145.Google Scholar

page 108 note 5 Cf. Ars 3. 812Google Scholar, Am. 2. 1. 12.Google Scholar

page 109 note 1 Cf. Fraenkel, , Horace, p. 36a.Google Scholar

page 109 note 2 See Kroll, , Studien zum Verständnis der römischen Literatur, p. 27Google Scholar; Norden, on Am. 6. 264 ff.Google Scholar; Il. 2. 485 f.Google Scholar, Apoll. Rhod. 4. 1381, Callimachus, h. 3. 186.Google Scholar

page 109 note 3 Thus the lines appear in the sixteenth-century translations made by Gavin Douglas, Phaer, and Stanyhurst.

page 110 note 1 See Fraenkel, , Kleine Beiträge, ii. 148 f.Google Scholar

page 110 note 2 I cannot agree with Leo, who observes of the ‘Helen’ lines ‘besser als der unechte Angang sind sie nicht’ (Plautinische For-schungen2, p. 42).Google Scholar

page 111 note 1 Cf. Phillimore, J. S., Ille ego: Virgil and Professor Richmond (Oxford, 1920), p. 16: an entertaining but wickedly biased polemic.Google Scholar

page 111 note 1 For other examples cf. Stat. S. 2. 7. 57, 4. 2. 2Google Scholar; Claudian, , iv Cons. Hon. 38Google Scholar, Cons. Stil. 1. 105Google Scholar, in Eutrop. I. 294Google Scholar; Prudentius, , Symm. 2. 52, 55Google Scholar (see Gronovius, , In P. Papinii Statii Silvarum Libros V Diatribe [1637], pp. 1 119 ff.).Google Scholar

page 112 note 1 It could reasonably be argued further that the idea of ‘forcing’ obedience is out of keeping with Virgil's feeling for the soil. However, cogere sometimes has a weakened sense (‘prevail upon’, or the like, as in Hor. Epp. i. 9.Google Scholar 2 ‘rogat et prece cogit’; cf. Roth-stein, on Prop. I. 4. 2).Google Scholar Nor need it imply even an unwilling object: cf. Vitruvius 7, praef. 13 ‘quorum artis eminens excellentia coegit ad septem spectaculorum eius operis peruenire famam’, quoted by Shackleton Bailey in his defence of cogis at Prop. 2.1.5.Google Scholar My attention was drawn to this by Professor G. W. Williams-more suo, he has helped me a great deal with this paper-and also to Suetonius, , vit. Hor. (p. 2. 21 ff.Google Scholar, Klingner) ‘ut non modo saeculare carmen conponen-dum iniunxerit, sed et Vindelicam uic-toriam … priuignorum suorum, eumque coegerit propter hoc tribus carminum libris … quartum addere.’

page 112 note 2 See the valuable discussion by Fuchs, H., Museum Helveticum iv (1947), 191, n. 114Google Scholar; and cf. Buchheit, V., Vergil über die Sendung Roms, 13 ff. (Gymnasium Beihefte 3, 1963).Google Scholar

page 113 note 1 Cf. Norden, , Aeneis VI, Anh. ii (‘Perio-dik’), p. 376Google Scholar: ‘Vergil hat die Gesetze der kunstmäβigen Prosa auf die Poesie über-tragen und für sie verbindlich gemacht: begreiflich genug, denn diese Art von Poesie war ja, wie rhetorische Prosa, zum lauten Lesen und Horen bestimmt’; see also p. 379, n. 1.

page 113 note 2 van Berchem, D. (RÉL. xx [1942], 73 ff.)Google Scholar propounded, apparently seriously, the view that the lines are a riposte by Virgil to Horace, , Sat. 2. 1. 13 ff.Google Scholar ‘neque enim quiuis horrentia pilis / agmina … describat’, together with other absurdities.

page 113 note 3 The Servian tradition made Tucca joint editor with Varius; but see Leo, , Plautiniscke Forschungen2, p. 41Google Scholar, Norden, , Hermes xxviii (1893), 501.Google Scholar

page 113 note 4 Cf. Sparrow, , Half-lines and Repetition in Virgil (Oxford, 1931), p. 13.Google Scholar

page 113 note 5 See Leo, , loc. cit. 40 f.Google Scholar: Donatus (35) shows that emendare was equivalent to sum-mam manum imponere, a very different matter for a conscientious editor from what it was for the author himself; Servius says of the Georgics ‘scripsit emendauitque’, of the Aeneid ‘nee emendauit nee edidit’.

page 113 note 6 Nisus' story of this has caused endless confusion, which fortunately does not con cern me here.

page 114 note 1 Cf. Leo, . loc. cit. 41.Google Scholar Servius'language is odd: ‘semiplenos eius inuenimus uersiculos … et aliquos detractos’: how could inuenire apply to what is detractum?

page 114 note 2 C.Q. N.S. xi (1961), 185 ff.Google Scholar I should like to correct here an inaccuracy on p. 192 n. 5, where I stated that Thilo reads ultoris Jama in ii. 587Google Scholar: this is a conjecture only (see his critical notes, p. xxxii), and he does not admit it to his text.

page 114 note 3 Philologus lxxxiii (1928), 331 ff.Google Scholar

page 114 note 4 Cf. Friedländer, , Sittengeschichte Roms9, iii. 55.Google Scholar

page 114 note 5 Cf. Hoogma, , op. cit. 222.Google Scholar

page 114 note 6 Roman Revolution, p. 219.Google Scholar

page 115 note 1 Cf. Marx, , Lucilius i, proleg. p. li.Google Scholar

page 115 note 2 Kleine Beiträge, ii. 192 ff.Google Scholar